THE Scottish and Welsh governments have demanded access to the latest draft of the UK’s blueprint for Brexit ahead of a tense meeting in London today.

Edinburgh and Cardiff said the Joint Ministerial Committee would be meaningless without prior sight of the White Paper setting out the UK’s preferences on customs and trade.

The paper is due to be published next week, provided Theresa May can secure sign-off from her divided cabinet at Chequers tomorrow.

However there were further reports of dissent yesterday after Mrs May, having ditched two previous customs options because of infighting, was said to have settled on a “third way” that was a decidedly soft Brexit.

Around 40 Tory MPs reportedly warned chief whip Julian Smith their party would be “toast” if the Prime Minister abandoned her Brexit red lines.

The third way is understood to involve the UK collecting EU import tariffs, a central plank of the supposedly abandoned “customs partnership” model, which Boris Johnson dismissed as “crazy”.

Mr Smith is expected to brief ministers on the parliamentary arithmetic for different options.

At PMQs, Tory Sir Edward Leigh asked if the UK’s negotiating position would be “full and unfettered” control of migration, trade deals, and business law.

Mrs May said Brexit meant an “independent trade policy”, Westminster sovereignty and an end to free movement but did not say anything was unfettered.

Scottish Brexit Secretary Michael Russell and Welsh Finance Secretary Mark Drakeford are due to discuss the White Paper with Cabinet office minister David Lidington this morning.

However they said the process was becoming nonsensical because the UK government refused to share basic information about the content.

In a joint letter, they complained a recent low-level meeting of ministers had been was “unsatisfactory” because they were “not permitted to see a single word of the draft White Paper in advance”, and could only contribute on the basis of brief, oral summaries.

“We therefore wish to make it absolutely clear that we will not regard any discussion of the White Paper at Thursday’s JMC (EN) as meaningful, unless we have been given prior access to the text of the draft White Paper as it currently stands,” they wrote.

Threatening to denounce the JMC as a joke if nothing charged, they added: “If we do not have this opportunity, we will have to make it very clear that we have been given no real possibility to consider, let alone influence the content of a document which will purport to speak on behalf of the whole of the United Kingdom, about matters, many of which are devolved... of the greatest possible importance to the people of Scotland and Wales.”

Mr Lidington said: “Today’s meeting is an important point for us to take stock with the Scottish and Welsh Governments. We are determined to get the best possible Brexit deal for all parts of the UK. This is a good opportunity for those of us in the UK Cabinet to hear what the devolved governments have to say.”